


Goodbye to Who We Were

by Pookaseraph



Series: Another Decade [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Tumblr: jaegercon, less than happy childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pookaseraph/pseuds/Pookaseraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt and Hermann return to the Hong Kong Shatterdome for the decommissioning rigmarole and to say one last goodbye to the site of their victory. The two of them also have to deal with the return of Hermann's father into his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye to Who We Were

**Author's Note:**

> Although a series, I think all or most of these stand up on their own. I have written Lars (Hermann's father) as being well-meaning, but a complete fucking failer when it comes to dealing with his son.
> 
>  ~~German is written completely in [] brackets, because I know as much German as I can do pull ups (0). If you feel like providing German translations, and/or suggestions on how to create a greater sense of German diction, I'm all ears.~~ German translations for my shitty fake German have been wonderfully provided by [Onefhart](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Onefhart), thank you so much for your help! Hopefully the translations are integrated well.
> 
> For the 'Endings' square on my Tumblr Jaegercon Bingo Card.

If there was one thing that Newt knew he could count on about intergovernmental bureaucracy, it was that it took a really long time to do anything. If wasn't until the fourth Kaiju made landfall that anyone even started thinking about coming together to figure out what the hell was going on. By then, Hermann had already made a predictive model to estimate the location of the Breach to within 50 miles - an inaccuracy that Newt ragged Hermann on to this day - and Newt had already earned a PhD in biochemistry based on the half-dozen samples he'd managed to finagle out of some colleagues at Stanford from Trespasser's carcass - Kaiju groupie from the onset, as Hermann would say.

So it was a shock that the actual decommissioning of the Hong Kong Shatterdome down from its emergency preparedness levels to skeleton crew was going to be accomplished in under six months. Most of the Jaeger techs had already found jobs in the - newly revitalized - tech and industrial sectors of their native countries, the few dozen Rangers who were now part of a defunct organization were looking to secure transfers into their local militaries or other peacekeeping forces, and the 'science division' - in the form of Newt and Hermann - were now professors at MIT, and living together, and... well Newt wasn't sure what they were to each other now, but it was something more than the colleagues they had been for almost a decade. It was the end of something old and the beginning of something new.

"Gentlemen," Marshal Herc Hansen greeted the two of them as they climbed out of their helicopter from the local airport. Newt waiting silently as Hermann took extra care with the step down from the interior.

" _Doctors_ ," Hermann said, under his breath. "Is it so hard to say 'doctors'?"

Newt ignored him, Herc ignored him, and the two of them shook hands while Hermann finally got himself situated and then also shook the Marshal's hand. Herc looked rough, and strained, and Newt knew he was still coming to terms with losing his son at the Breach. Newt still had a hard time grasping it, even though he'd known many of the Jaeger pilots, most of the Mark Is and all of the Mark IIs and beyond. Hermann had known every one of them. Chuck had been a pain in the ass, but he'd been one of the best and brightest before then.

"We have your old rooms, just how you left them." Herc began walking, a bit too quickly - even after years with Hermann, people inevitably rushed them - but Newt kept his steady pace with Hermann and the man eventually stopped, and when the two of them caught up he resumed more slowly. "The actual ceremony will be tomorrow, full compliment of the highest at PPDC."

"Which is to say: dozens of politicians who not three months ago were touting the merits of their Wall, and will now claim to have been stalwart supporters of the Jaeger program in her darkest hours," Hermann said, not bothering to keep his voice low.

Newt would usually try to soften some of the man's vitriol, but he didn't bother. Hermann was completely correct.

"Something like that," Herc answered. "Pentecoste always hated the double talk, but it will be nice to have some of them pin a medal on him, however posthumous."

He and Hermann didn't rate an re-introduction to the Shatterdome, so the pair of them made their way down to the housing areas, Newton made himself at home by upending the contents of his duffel into a single dresser drawer and then tucking his computer into a bag to keep slung at his hip. You never knew when inspiration would strike.

Hermann, of course, took his sweet time, and Newt didn't even bother to check on him until he'd spent forty-five minutes checking his email, going back and forth with his tentative advisees, settling a few thoughts on the new crop of PhD applicants, and responding to a scientific review of one of his and Hermann's papers (the response was a more wordy way of saying 'shut up, you don't know shit, we lived this', and he figured Hermann would have appreciated that).

They met outside of their respective rooms - they shared a wall - and Hermann took one glance at him before his mouth tightened. "Did you even hang up your suit?"

Newt slunk back into his room, dug his suit out of the rumpled mess of clothing he'd packed, and hung it against the back of his door. He could figure out how to steam it later, although more likely was that Hermann would take it on himself an hour or so before they were expected to be ready for the shutdown and award ceremony.

"Hungry?" Newt asked, glancing over to his partner.

A nod in response sent them to the commissary, while Newton stocked up on all the various food that wasn't as easy to get in Boston and Hermann stuck to the more traditional items that they ate all the time. You could set a clock to the man's predictability... or maybe you couldn't, because he was predictable _all the time_ and it wouldn't make a set time... the metaphor had gotten away from him a bit somewhere in the middle.

Hermann was halfway through buttering a roll, when he and Newt started up their conversation that had started somewhere after Hawaii. "Obviously a full neurological workup of a Kaiju is impossible based on our current knowledge, and an intact, preserved Kaiju brain is something we will never actually be able to acquire between the silicone structure and the..."

The rest of the sentence died on his lips as a figure came into view across the table from him. He was lean, maybe in his sixties, with grey hair and a stern mouth that Newt would have recognized anywhere, even if he didn't currently have a sizable chunk of Hermann's psyche permanently imprinted on various parts of his brain.

"Could you give us a few moments?" The man - Lars, Dr. Lars Gottlieb, Gottlieb Sr., his mind supplied - asked.

The part of his mind that Newt had started to accept as 'not his own' protested immediately. No, Hermann did not want to have a conversation with the man alone, no he did not want to give the man that opening, did not want the privacy of the moment to give Dr. Gottlieb the pleasure of his critique.

"Nah! That's alright," Newt answered, putting his head down over his computer. "Just pretend I'm not here."

Hermann snorted - one of the ones where he was amused with Newt, not exasperated, Newt had long since learned the difference - "My colleague, Dr. Newton Geiszler. Dr. Geiszler, my father, Dr. Lars Gottlieb."

Newt took the formality for what it was, respect, although that didn't mean he couldn't take advantage of everything he knew about Gottlieb Jr. to rankle Gottlieb Sr. "Lars, pleasure to finally meet you."

Direct hit. Lars made a face that Newt was only too familiar with from Hermann: 'I need to find a napkin so I can scrape you off my shoe.'

"Likewise." After a moment's pause, he continued: "Hermann's told me about you."

Somehow Newt doubted it had been a flattering report.

" _Er ist... interessant_ ," _He's interesting_ , Lars said, switching over to German, no doubt on the assumption that 'Dr. Geiszler', in spite of the name and place of birth, was far more Americanized for his time in MIT.

It wasn't a false assumption, his German was riddled with what Hermann always called an atrocious accent, but that didn't mean Newt couldn't follow along.

Hermann didn't correct his father's assumption, either. " _Du hast keine Ahnung_." _You have no idea_.

" _Was muss ich hören, dass du immer noch mit ihm arbeitest? Du könntest jede Stelle, jeden Job haben, und du vergeudest es als ein Professor and einer amerikanischen Universität?_" Lars continued, actually fast enough that Newt stumbled over the words, more because he wasn't conspicuously listening. _What is this I hear that you are continuing to work with him? You could have any position, any job, and you will waste it as a professor at an American university?_

" _So wie ich die letzten fünf Jahre mit Jaegern und Hoffnung anstelle von Mauern und Feigheit vergeudet habe?_ " Hermann responded, his voice surprisingly calm, which was rather a testament to his acting skills rather than a true calm. _Like I have wasted the last five on Jaegers and hope rather than Walls and cowardice?_

The various members of the PPDC were more than familiar with Hermann and Newt's full-volume, full-German, nonstop rants that took them all of the way through the cafeteria lines and back to their office, so this would likely look like a sedate father-son chat to anyone who didn't look too closely.

" _Praktisches Denken_ ," Lars responded. _Practical thinking_.

Newt could have laughed, but he didn't, because he was pretending he didn't know what the Drs. Gottlieb were saying. 'Practical'; backwards and cowardly. Hermann was nothing but a practical thinker, he looked at the numbers and he saw that they had been facing extinction level events and he had acted accordingly. Lars had decided to throw his considerable scientific clout behind the Wall. For all that Newt and Hermann had their - frequent - disagreements, they were always in lockstep when it came to the right course in the face of apocalypse: fight like hell.

" _Schlussendlich gab es Resultate_ ," Hermann answered, poking at his food imperiously. _In the end, there were results_.

" _Du..._ " For the first time in the conversation, Lars actually seemed to be showing some sort of genuine emotion. Newt was only passably familiar with the look on Hermann. " _Wir hätten dich in diesem Irrsinn verlieren können._ " _We could have lost you in this foolishness_.

" _Du hast andere Söhne,_ " Hermann answered. _You have other sons_.

Newt went back to looking down at his computer. Other sons that Lars didn't put as much pressure on, and Newt knew how heavy the strain had been on Hermann growing up. It wasn't like Newt hadn't pegged him as high strung from the day they'd met, years ago. He knew that Hermann had gotten it from somewhere. The conversation continued, back and forth, more and less heated, and Newt kept his ear on it as Lars seemed to take issue with absolutely every choice of his son.

It was truly exceptional, especially considering Hermann was _a Rock Star_ , they had saved the world together, they'd come together and proven that it could be done, that they didn't need to cower behind a wall and leave humanity to its doom. Partway through, when Newt could _feel_ Hermann tensing up beside him, he stretched out his leg so they were pressed knee-to-ankle, Newt lending silent support as he continued to be prepared to interject.

" _Schon alleine die Vorträge, die du verpassen wirst..._ " _The speaking engagements you will be missing out on, alone..._

Which was about the moment that Newt was about to interject, bring the conversation to its conclusion, and just get the man to _stop_. Newt couldn't understand what sort of profound _idiot_ couldn't see how exceptional his son was.

Instead, Tendo took the moment to interrupt, coming over, tray in hand with a mangled 'Gutten tag Herr Doktors', which caused Lars to tense up and Hermann to relax. Newt just snorted.

"Oh! Tendo!" He turned towards the man and gave a frantic little wave. "Hermann and I have bit of a disagreement going."

"Just one?" Tendo asked, always ready with a wry comment at their expense.

"Well, several. But this one we actually need you to weigh in on, since Hermann respects you as an expert in the field," Newt said, ignoring Hermann's annoyed snort behind him. "Mama Kaiju, Otachi. Baby Kaiju, Kodachi, right?"

"This is what you argue about?" Tendo asked, but he took the silent invitation to sit on Newt's other side, and pick at his food. "Greatest minds in K-Science and you argue about what to name a baby Kaiju."

"Well, we agree on all the important things."

Hermann laughed, an actual, honest and genuine laugh, which he did not get under control for several seconds. "Just tell the man what to name the damn thing so I don't have to keep hearing about it," Hermann said.

"Kodachi is fine," Tendo answered. "I'll put it on the books."

Newt held out a fist, and Tendo responded by fist bumping him in response, he then looked over towards Hermann, half an eye kept on Lars as well, and he finished, in German. " _Jetzt wissen wir, wie wir es in all unseren Vorträgen zu nennen haben._ " _Now we know how to refer to it on all of those speaking engagements we have._

" _Hast du noch einer Vortragseinladung zugestimmt, ohne mich vorher zu konsultieren?_ " Hermann asked, voice already rising. " _Ich hätte andere Verpflichtungen haben können. Warum musst du immer--?_ "

_Did you answer another academic invitation without consulting me? I could have had another engagement. Why do you constantly--?_

"I checked your calendar. I put it on your calendar," Newt said, with a shrug, willing to shift back to English now that the point had been made. It was a comfortable behavior, since English was the default language for PPDC, and they were the only Germans, they saved their excitable shouting for the truly important things.

"My _calendar_ is password protec--" Hermann trailed off, as Newt responded by tapping the side of his head. "Why do I put up with you?"

Newt already knew the answer to that, it was because they actually got along, because they clicked, because they were somehow able to Drift with each other even though never did two scientists more embody the concepts of left and right brain... because they worked.

Lunch became almost civil after that... almost.

"So, what sort of speaking engagements is my son going to be having?" Lars asked, turning his full attention on Newt.

Newt had absolutely no delusions about this man. He was... well, Newt figured the guy actually cared about Hermann; he was a student of the school of Hansen interpersonal relationships, so he could see gruff affection when it was on display, but it was nothing like what Newt had gotten growing up - doting affection and constant, sincere and earnest praise. "Math." He shrugged.

"Give me that!" Hermann tugged the laptop from Newt and scanned the emails and his calendar to scan. "Oh, just some work with my predictive models... how they can be exported to other seemingly random... it's just a followup on my paper that will be coming out next month."

"Dr. Gottlieb has fundamentally revolutionized the way with think about events that appear at first random, but actually conform to certain fundamental patt--" He caught Hermann staring. "What?"

"You calle..." Hermann cleared his throat. "You were actually paying attention when I wrote that paper."

He shrugged.

Soon they escaped the looming judgement of _Lars_ and found themselves wandering aimlessly through the corridors of the Shatterdome. Newt was a common sight, and there were plenty of 'Newt' and even a smattering of 'Dr. Geiszler's from the techs who were too damn polite for their own good, but in general they were left alone, and with no pending apocalypse, Newt allowed him the chance to be sedate.

"Thank you," Hermann said, when they were alone in a stretch of corridor, probably heading towards the flight deck.

"Don't mention it." Newt shoved his hands in his pockets and continued to walk. "Maybe now that you've..."

"Do not mistake my empirical success with something that will impress Dr. Gottlieb," Hermann said. "We have been in conflict on the math of the Breach and the math of Kaiju for almost my entire adult life. I doubt that rivalry will end any time soon."

"We were _amazing_ , Hermann. Proved almost every politician, and most scientists, completely wrong, backwards thinking... pedestrian... I thought you'd like that." Newt trailed off. He knew Hermann liked that, the man loved being right, but it was strange to see him get no satisfaction out of it. Newt was immensely satisfied with being right, but the only person he had to brag to about it was Hermann, and Hermann was usually right too.

"Let's say our farewells," Hermann answered, ignoring Newt - which wasn't unusual, but still a bit annoying.

They focused on that, the flight crews, the commissary staff, the few people who had been assigned to support K-Science, the Rangers, the ground crews, Jaeger crews, Mako, Raleigh, Herc... hours and hours of goodbyes. It was more trying than he would have expected. The two of them ended up in the Shatterdome itself, the housing for all of the old Jaegers, completely empty now, no Jaegers left. The end of an era.

The two of them went from sober to tipsy in Hermann's room on some Jaegermeister - old joke, ten year old joke that was still funny while drunk - and Newt continued to work his way past tipsy in his own room after Hermann threw him out. He had his music up just loud enough to be annoying to Hermann - trashy Euro-metal stuff - and was composing his next masterpiece on silicate cellular biology, when there was a knock on the door.

He took the three steps it took to get to the door, and yanked it open, finding himself face-to-face with Gottlieb Sr. "Hey! Lars! Hermann's next door."

"I wanted to talk to you," Lars said, voice making it clear that 'want' was a strong word for his emotions on the matter.

Newt backed away, and let Lars in, shutting the door behind him and cranking down the music to 'slightly less annoying'. Lars paced, as much as a man could pace in a coffin of a room that was the personnel quarters. Newt recognized the gesture instantly, Hermann's pre-revelation pace, the one he did when he was preparing his thoughts to come out in a burst of information and yammering. Newt waited. At least on that front, he had more patience than a Gottlieb.

"My son and I have never had a good relationship," Lars said, in a tone that didn't invite comment, but made Newt want to bubble up with a pointed 'duh', which he was unable to do before Lars continued. "He is far and away the brightest of my children, and, indeed, any student I have ever had. That is why I was the hardest on him. We argued constantly, after our initial time working together on the Jaeger program, I made a choice guided by..." Lars paused for long seconds-- "by fear. I did not want my son in harm's way. I did not want my son where he would be risking his life for..."

No further explanations were forthcoming, and Newt arched an eyebrow. "Dude, Hermann still lives right next door. Pretty sure I'm not the guy you need to say this to." His own mother and father had been effusive with their praise, and their amazement that their son was a doctor (six times over), and Newt couldn't imagine a time when he wouldn't know his parents were proud of him, but he knew, he knew intensely, that Hermann did not know anything of the sort.

"With the Program ending, I just... realized we would have nothing. No memos, no reasons to..." Lars hung his head, and took a deep breath. "You start to understand that your son has grown from a boy to a man and you've spent almost a decade not realizing."

That was apparently all Lars had to say on the matter, and he gave Newt a nod before he made to retreat from the room.

"You know," Newt said, causing him to pause. "He doesn't hate you, he just... you disappoint him, and he mistakes that for you being disappointed in him."

Lars took several moments to take that in, and cocked his head, as though trying to figure out Newt as well. "You're odd. I can see what Hermann sees in you, though."

Newt eventually passed out, face first, in his tiny little bed, and in the morning, Hermann came over and glowered at him and helped him in the matter of steaming his suit, sort of, well, it got most of the wrinkles out, anyway, and they made their way to the Shatterdome, now given over to thousands of chairs. They even got to sit up front... some small part of Newt that would always be twelve appreciated that.

"Did your dad stop by to see you last night?" Newt asked.

"Why would he do that?"

"He stopped by to see me. I think it was the Gottlieb equivalent of a drunk dial. _'I love you, man'_." Newt leaned back in his chair, head resting on the back of his chair back.

"My father does not _emote_ like that."

Newt gave a confirmatory little hum.

"What on Earth do you think is the Gottlieb equivalent of a declaration of love?" Hermann finally asked while others filed in to fill their own seats.

Newt thought about it for a moment, wondered what love would look like... "Compliments to phi-inspired body proportions, maybe... that it hasn't been entirely tragic to know them?" Newt shrugged again, which was uncomfortable from where he was sprawled in his chair. "It was some sort of weird backhanded olive branch, but if he can't say it himself..."

He really didn't deserve it.

It took another twenty or so minutes for people to actually get in place, with the various senators and diplomats and closed-minded jerks to get into place. There were speeches that made it sound like they actually had been behind the Jaeger program rather than the wall, commending the heroes, mourning the fallen they had never met, and the scientists they didn't understand. It was, in short, every political or academic thing Newt had ever been to.

Herc's speech he at least paid attention to.

"Some of us here," he said. "Some of us have been here since the beginning. We gave our lives to the cause from the first days, the early days." That included Hermann, and Newt, who had both come to the PPDC almost as soon as it was founded. "But we're no different than the men and women who came to us later, and brought a fire that we could not always keep burning."

The speech continued, and Newt found himself nodding along, appreciating Herc's words for what they were, and pretending that their front row seats didn't make it obvious how much the man had been crying, and would probably cry again.

"PPDC has been such a part of my life... I'm sorry to see her shut her doors, even if that means our future, as a planet, is finally secure again." Herc cleared his throat. "We have a few special guests who will be recognizing many of our distinguished members."

When they didn't start immediately with Mako and Raleigh, Newt realized this would take a while. There were several individuals being recognized, being given their moment in the sun, and Newt knew the lion's share of them.

He and Hermann got their awards - sadly they did not say 'rock star' on them - and as he'd promised Hermann it was Gottlieb Sr. who did the pinning. He even said that they were visionaries, or something.

The two of them were more than ready to get the hell out of there by the time it came to leave. Newt had gotten pretty much every email address - completely with a promise to Tendo for drinks when they were both stateside again - while Hermann was conspicuously uninterested in maintaining personal ties - liar - but it was good to make it out on the helipad and wait for their ride.

"Dr. Geiszler!"

Newt turned to find Lars hustling to join them on the way to the airport. "Hey, Lars." Oh it was worth it every time, especially the way Hermann's lip turned up at the smack to the man's pride and station. "Nice to finally meet you."

"Right..." Lars almost made it sound like he agreed. "I... Hermann..." Gottlieb silence, patented. "I should be in Boston in a few months. We should have dinner."

Hermann looked like he was warring with the desire to turn the man down and accept.

"If we can find the time," Newt answered, when Hermann's wasn't forthcoming. "We're fairly busy, getting set up, that sort of thing."

"Right." Lars looked back and forth between the two of them for a moment, complicated look there. "Right, of course, I wouldn't want to intrude." He decided he didn't want to intrude so much that he let Hermann and him take the helicopter solo, even though he was probably heading out as well.

The two of them looked out the window of the retreating Shatterdome, and Newt felt something break, a little piece of his heart, and his home, getting shut down. He bounced between Shatterdomes throughout the Kaiju War, but it was going to be hell to never see one again.

"Good riddance," Hermann said.

"You don't mean that," Newt answered.

"I think I do," he answered. "He has this exceptional ability to make me feel small."

Oh. Right. Newt jostled Hermann with his elbow. "Well, we can stand him up for a dinner date when he comes to Boston if it makes you feel any better."

"It might."

Newt spent the next few minutes watching the Shatterdome disappear into the distance, and after a minute or so, Hermann's hand rested on his shoulder, lending a little bit of support. Although he'd left a month ago to get set up at MIT, this felt like the real ending, he and Hermann waving goodbye to that part of their life...

He wondered if he'd miss it. Maybe, eventually, but he'd gotten to take the part that made him a better scientist with him, so he couldn't imagine missing it for long; they would move onto a new challenge soon enough.


End file.
